· European Research Centre for Anti-Corruption and State-Building, Hertie School of Governance, ERCAS Working Paper No. 61

Beyond the lag. How to predict and understand evolutions towards good governance?

This paper tries to forecast good governance evolutions by drawing on the time trends of Index of Public Integrity’s sub-components1. Previous work has showed these to be powerful determinants of control of corruption: judicial independence, freedom of the press, administrative burden, trade openness, as well as the proxies of budget transparency and e-citizenship are considered. Their de- terminants power proves weaker across time than across countries, as the first sections of this paper shows. Based on their trends, we identify several leaders and backsliders. However, more often than not the progress of countries on some items is offset by regress on others. This makes it difficult to understand country trends based only on quantitative measures. We therefore combine this appro- ach with other elements to produce a pilot forecast:

1. Ten years trends of determinants of corruption/the public integrity framework (components of the Index for Public Integrity, IPI), or their related proxies, when not available.

2. The IPI evolution since 2015

3. Qualitative elements, such as recent windows of opportunity (such as elections won with an anticorruption mandate) and implementation gaps (distance between formal treaties/conventions signed and their implementation)

4. The potential critical mass demanding good governance and its digital empowerment at the present moment (e-citizens), as well as other proxies or good governance demand.

This forecast thus blends numerical and qualitative indicators. N=124 countries for which data was available.